Mitochondrial DNA STR analysis as a tool for studying the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) populations: The Mediterranean Sea case study

Expanded mitochondrial control region sequences increase resolution of stock structure among North Atlantic loggerhead turtle rookeries

“…However, longer sequences did not significantly improve resolution for haplotype A with nearly all foraging and nesting individuals still confounded as haplotype Ei-A1 (Browne et al 2010, LeRoux et al in press). The repetitive element present in the mitochondrial genome was recently shown to be highly polymorphic in Mediterranean green turtles (Tikochinski et al 2012) and loggerhead turtles nesting at Zakynthos, Greece (Drosopoulou et al 2012), despite minimal haplotype diversity in the remainder of the control region within nesting populations, suggesting that these may be suitable markers for identifying fine scale structure. Mitogenomic variable positions were also recently shown to improve stock structure among green turtle rookeries through subdivision of a common control region haplotype into regional subhaplotypes (Shamblin et al 2012).…”

Genetic markers provide insight on origins of immature green turtles Chelonia mydas with biased sex ratios at foraging grounds in Sabah, Malaysia

“…These shared haplotypes are contributors to the large uncertainty surrounding the estimates for these populations. Whole mito genome se quencing and microsatellites found in the mtDN A control region have added resolution to green turtle rookeries in both the Mediterranean and the Car ibbean (Shamblin et al 2012, Tikochinski et al 2012) and may offer a better way to distinguish common and shared haplotypes in Southeast Asia in the future.…”

Advances in the Application of Genetics in Marine Turtle Biology and Conservation

“…However, using a mitochondrial short tandem repeat (mtSTR) marker downstream of the standard control region sequence used for haplotype designation, Tikochinski et al (2012) determined that this common haplotype could be subdivided into 33 variants. Examining differences in the frequencies of these mtSTR variants from the Israeli rookery compared to stranding's along the Israeli coast suggested that population structure is present among Mediterranean green turtle rookeries.…”

“…However, this haplotype was later found to occur at low frequency in the Florida nesting aggregation (Shamblin et al, 2015a). Analysis of the mtSTR for CM-A13 turtles nesting and foraging in Florida yielded a shared repeat haplotype that was not among the 33 described thus far from the Mediterranean (Tikochinski et al, 2012), revealing that the foraging turtles most likely originated locally within the Greater Caribbean region (Shamblin et al, 2015b). In a second example, in the northern Greater Caribbean region, CM-A1 and CM-A3 are the dominant haplotypes shared among the rookeries of Quintana Roo, Mexico; Guanahacabibes Peninsula, Cuba; and Florida rookeries (Encalada et al, 1996;Ruiz-Urquiola et al, 2010;Shamblin et al, 2015a).…”

“…For mtDNA, this began with the development of primers that target an extended control region sequence (i.e., 766 vs. 490 bp; Shamblin et al, 2012b), and recently extended to identification of diagnostic variants in other mtDNA regions (Shamblin et al, 2012a;Tikochinski et al, 2012) and whole mitogenome sequencing (Duchêne et al, 2012). In cases where there is not extensive haplotype sharing among rookeries, the extended control region sequence can effectively identify natal origin of foraging turtles (LeRoux et al, 2012).…”